Nucleic acid amplification provides a means for making more copies of a nucleic acid sequence that is relatively rare or unknown, for identifying the source of nucleic acids, or for making sufficient nucleic acid to provide a readily detectable amount. Amplification is useful in many applications, for example, in diagnostics, drug development, forensic investigations, environmental analysis, and food testing.
Many methods for amplifying nucleic acid sequences in vitro are known, including polymerase chain reaction (PCR), ligase chain reaction (LCR), replicase-mediated amplification, strand-displacement amplification (SDA), “rolling circle” types of amplification, and various transcription associated amplification methods. These known methods use different techniques to make amplified sequences, which usually are detected by using a variety of methods. PCR amplification uses a DNA polymerase, oligonucleotide primers, and thermal cycling to synthesize multiple copies of both strands of a double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) or dsDNA made from a cDNA (U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,683,195, 4,683,202, and 4,800,159, Mullis et al.). LCR amplification uses an excess of two complementary pairs of single-stranded probes that hybridize to contiguous target sequences and are ligated to form fused probes complementary to the original target, which allows the fused probes to serve as a template for further fusions in multiple cycles of hybridization, ligation, and denaturation (U.S. Pat. No. 5,516,663 and EP 0320308 B1, Backman et al.). Replicase-mediated amplification uses a self-replicating RNA sequence attached to the analyte sequence and a replicase, such as Qβ-replicase, to synthesize copies of the self-replicating sequence specific for the chosen replicase, such as a Qβ viral sequence (U.S. Pat. No. 4,786,600, Kramer et al.). The amplified sequence is detected as a substitute or reporter molecule for the analyte sequence. SDA uses a primer that contains a recognition site for a restriction endonuclease which allows the endonuclease to nick one strand of a hemimodified dsDNA that includes the target sequence, followed by a series of primer extension and strand displacement steps (U.S. Pat. No. 5,422,252A, Walker et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 5,547,861, Nadeau et al.). Rolling circle types of amplification rely on a circular or concatenated nucleic acid structure that serves as a template used to enzymatically replicate multiple single-stranded copies from the template (e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 5,714,320, Kool, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,834,252, Stemmer et al.). Transcription associated amplification refers to methods that amplify a sequence by producing multiple transcripts from a nucleic acid template. Such methods generally use one or more oligonucleotides, of which one provides a promoter sequence, and enzymes with RNA polymerase and DNA polymerase activities to make a functional promoter sequence near the target sequence and then transcribe the target sequence from the promoter (e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,399,491 and 5,554,516, Kacian et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,437,990, Burg et al., WO 1988010315 A1, Gingeras et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,130,238, Malek et al., U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,868,105 and 5,124,246, Urdea et al., and U.S. 2006-0046265 A1, Becker et al.). Nucleic acid amplification methods may amplify a specific target sequence (e.g., a gene sequence), a group of related target sequences, or a surrogate sequence, which may be referred to as a tag or reporter sequence that is amplified and detected in place of the analyte sequence. The surrogate sequence is only amplified if the analyte target sequence is present at some point during the reaction.
Modified nucleic acid amplification methods may amplify more than one potential target sequence by using “universal” primer(s) or universal priming. One form of PCR amplification uses universal primers that bind to conserved sequences to amplify related sequences in a PCR reaction (Okamoto et al., 1992, J. Gen. Virol. 73 (Pt. 3):673-9, Persing et al, 1992, J. Clin. Microbiol. 30 (8):2097-103). Methods that use universal primers often are paired with use of a species-specific, gene-specific or type-specific primer or primers to generate an amplified sequence that is unique to a species, genetic variant, or viral type, which may be identified by sequencing or detecting some other characteristic of the amplified nucleic acid. For example, a method may use one universal primer and one specific primer in the same amplification step. For another example, a method may use “nested” PCR in which a pair of universal primers are used in an initial amplification step to amplify many potential target sequences, followed by use of a pair of specific primers in subsequent amplification steps to amplify one or more specific target sequences contained in the initial amplicons.
Anchored PCR is another modified PCR method that uses a universal primer or an “adapter” primer to amplify a sequence which is only partially known. Anchored PCR introduces an “adaptor” or “universal” sequence into a cDNA and then uses a primer that binds to the introduced sequence in subsequent amplification steps. Generally, anchored-PCR uses a primer directed to a known sequence to make a cDNA, adds a known sequence (e.g., poly-G) to the cDNA or uses a common sequence in the cDNA (e.g., poly-T), and performs PCR by using a universal primer that binds to the added or common sequence in the cDNA and a downstream target-specific primer (Loh et al., 1989, Science 243 (4888):217-20; Lin et al., 1990, Mol. Cell. Biol. 10 (4):1818-21). Nested PCR may use primer(s) that contain a universal sequence unrelated to the analyte target sequence to amplify nucleic acid from unknown target sequences in a reaction (Sullivan et al, 1991, Electrophoresis 12 (1):17-21; Sugimoto et al., 1991, Agric. Biol. Chem. 55 (11):2687-92).
Other forms of amplification use a probe or probe set to introduce universal priming sites located upstream and downstream of a target-specific sequence and adapter sequence(s), which may be referred to as molecular zip-codes. The upstream and downstream priming sites are used to amplify a nucleic acid that contains the adapter sequence(s) which are detected, usually on an array, to identify the target present in the reaction (U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,812,005 and 6,890,741, Fan et al.). The two probes that bind in close proximity on a target sequence may be ligated together before being amplified by using the upstream and downstream universal priming sites.
Alternative assay methods may use probe hybridization and linear signal amplification by using a common sequence that is included in a variety of analyte-specific probes (e.g., U.S. 20070111200, Hudson et al.). This method uses a labeled cassette that contains a sequence complementary to the common sequence to detect multiple analytes.